


La Bohème

by pdorkaa



Category: La bohème - Puccini/Illica/Giacosa, Opera
Genre: Character Death, Drama, Multi, Operas, Romance, Someone stop me, for obvious reasons
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-24 07:59:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9712460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pdorkaa/pseuds/pdorkaa
Summary: Marcello (a painter), Rodolfo (a poet), Colline (a philosopher) and Schaunard (a musician) live together in a small garret, in extreme poverty, with nothing but their good humour. Everything changes, though, when Mimì stumbles into their life by a moment of glorius serendipity.Follows Giacomo Puccini's La Bohème closely - four young bohemians, the Quartier Latin, love, misery and poverty during the 1840's.





	

**Author's Note:**

> i, when being disappointed with the lack of La Bohème fanfiction, came up with this monstrosity. forgive me. the use of dialogue is liberal, but it vaguely holds the same intention and meaning as the original libretto (without the lyrical flair). also Schaunard and Colline are dating and no one can convince me otherwiiiiiiiiiiiise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if someone wants to stop me there's still time

Marcello frowned at the canvas in front of him. He was painting the Red Sea, and it was coming along nicely, yes, but somehow, the painting was frustrating him more and more with each passing moment. Something about the lines... the waves... it wasn't adding up.

He slammed down his paintbrush. "I'll take revenge and drown a Pharaoh!" He exclaimed, looking over to the window, where Rodolfo was hunched on a small stool with a blanket across his shoulders, looking out over the rooftops of Paris. He could see the poet's fingers quivering over the edge of the threadbare fabric as he clutched it even harder.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm watching the smoke rise up into the grey skies" Rodolfo answered, still absent-minded. "And I'm thinking that our old fireplace is like a rich lord in its laziness" he added, but didn't turn, only drew the blanket closer over his back.

Marcello lifted an eyebrow at the comparison, but answered his friend in kind. "How could it not be lazy when it doesn't receive any firewood?" He knew Rodolfo sometimes got in a mood; this last one started with the snow. The painter sighed. It probably wouldn't pass until Rodolfo is either out of his writer's block, or the winter ends, he reasoned, and turned back towards his canvas. Only, the Red Sea angered him even more than before.

Rodolfo murmured something about forests under all the snow. After some thinking, Marcello stood up to shake some life into his frozen limbs, and began again.

"Rodolfo, I have to tell you my profound thoughts now: I'm fucking cold."

"And I, Marcello" Rodolfo turned on his stool, "will not hide mine from you: I am not too hot either." His attempt at frivolous language was ruined by clattering teeth, and he seemed to fold in on himself to conserve some warmth.

"My fingers are frozen" Marcello lamented, "as if I was still holding Musetta's icy heart between them!"

Rodolfo straightened with an expression of faux wisdom on his face, eyebrows drawn high. "Love is a fireplace that burns all too hot" he stated.

"And in a hurry" Marcello added, equally amused and disgruntled.

"Where man is its fuel" Rodolfo continued, trailing off.

"And the woman is the spark" Marcello helped him out, grinning fully now.

"But he burns in the blink of an eye."

"And she just stands by and watches" Marcello concluded, sitting back in front of his canvas once again.

"Meanwhile, we're freezing here" Rodolfo commented, mock hurt dripping from his words.

"Not to mention starving" Marcello added, and stood up again, this time with more purpose than the last. Purpose for what, he couldn't tell, but he was sick and tired of paint, of brushes and of any seas. Sick and tired of his rigid fingers, sick and tired of how he couldn't hold the brushes properly with them. Sometimes, sick and tired of Rodolfo and the others too, but that came with sharing a small space, and he'd made his peace with that. They could always resolve conflict - under the great, blue skies, they had nothing but their talents and each other, and, Lord knows, that wasn't of much use these days.

"We need a fire" Rodolfo murmured, as if to himself. Marcello looked around the small space, and his eyes fell upon the very same stool he just stood up from.

"We shall sacrifice the chair!" But, when Rodolfo simply ignored his dramatic exclamation, he turned and saw the poet rummaging around in a crate of pens, papers and black ink.

"Ideas will keep us warm" he offered as explanation, and went back to digging deeper into the crate.

"We could burn the Red Sea" Marcello turned back to the damned painting on the easel.

"Burnt paint smells awfully" Rodolfo only shot him a condescending gaze and said nothing else.

"Well, have you found something?" Marcello retorted.

Rodolfo held up a handful of bunched up paper. "My fiery drama will keep us warm!"

"You're going to read it out loud? We'll freeze to death faster."

"No! From the ashes of the paper, fire will rise! What a loss to this decade!"

"What a noble heart you have" Marcello told him alongside a cocked eyebrow.

Rodolfo paid him no heed, and chucked the sheets into the empty fireplace. "Here goes the first act!"

They sat, in silence for a while, watching the little flames turned blue by the ink, and held their hands out to warm their rigid fingers. A little smile played along Rodolfo's mouth; Marcello understood it as something that couldn't be put into words - something he would have felt if it was his Red Sea burning there. They heard the old door and floorboards creak, signaling that someone has come home. Soon enough, a deep bass rumbled behind them, laced with genuine surprise.

"A flame!" Colline shrugged out of his coat. "There's no pawn shop open on Christmas Eve!" He scoffed, and then a mixture of amusement and cynicism seeped into his voice. "Surely, a first sign of the apocalypse."

Rodolfo turned his head towards him, but kept his eyes on the fireplace. "Shhh, my play is on stage!"

"Your play? In the fire, my friend." Colline laid a heavy hand on the poet's shoulder, and patted it. After watching the little, dancing flames closely, he added with false approval: "I find it vibrating."

Marcello poked the shrinking foils with the firepoker. "It's all too brief." They watched as the fire died out, leaving a wafting, blue-grey cloud of stale smoke.

Rodolfo stood and straightened, rising his finger to lecture the other two. "Brevity is the soul of wit."

"Lend me your chair, author" Colline sat onto the stool without waiting for an answer, and put his books down beside him.

"The intermissions are far too long" Marcello commented and sighed, scratching the firepoker along the tiles between the wrinkled ashes.

"The second act!"

"No whispering" Marcello reminded the others as he lit the sheets Rodolfo held out to him.

They sat back and watched the flames again, occasionally commenting on Rodolfo's literary talents. What else was there to do?

"Those were kisses!"

"That, there is a flaming love scene going up in smoke."

"The rest of it I'll hear at once!" Rodolfo threw the rest of his manuscript into the dying flames in a terrifying moment of determination and reckless abandon. Marcello suddenly thought of his Red Sea again; the painting was still antagonising him, it felt, but at least it wasn't going up in flames for brief moments of warmth and light. Painted canvas smells, he chuckled to himself.

They were silent again for a while.

"Ah, it's a fragile little drama" Colline frowned at the last ember as it died out.

"Down, down with the author!" He and Marcello exclaimed at once, and started chasing Rodolfo around the small space.

They were promptly stopped short by Schaunard, who was just toeing the door closed behind him - in his hands he held heavy crates, and in his eyes a glittering, amused disapproval. Marcello put the firepoker down and took a crate.

"Firewood!"

"Let's light a proper fire now!" And they got to it, not paying attention to Schaunard as he sat the other crate down onto the small table.

"The Bank of France is bankrupt because of you all" he smiled at them, throwing a sack of coins in their general direction. His eyes crinkled and his teeth showed as he laughed silently at the three others diving after the coins that spilt out from the sack.

"Tin coins, arent they?" Marcello bit into one of them.

"Are you blind?" Schaunard held a coin so close to Marcello's eyes he was afraid he will be, and soon. "Who is that man?"

"Louis Philip, no one else, my King!" Rodolfo laughed, and bowed a little to the coin he held in front of his face.

"I'm telling you, this gold - silver, rather - has a long story. An Englishman... A gentleman, a lord... he was looking for a musician and I, naturally, went to him, offered my services" Schaunard gestured widely. "He hired me, and when asking when will I start, he said" he scrunched his face up, "at once!"

He faked a bad British accent. "I want that parrot dead! Play until he's dead, he said."

Schaunard turned, and held his arms out, in an imitation of a parrot. "The damned thing just wouldn't die... so I had to" he cleared his throat, "win over the serving girl to feed it poisoned parsley... And so, Lorito spread his wings... Lorito opened his beak... and he died like Socrates!"

"Who?" Colline looked up, asking around a mouthful of food.

"Devil take you all! What the hell are you doing? No! These are for emergencies! For future days, dark and gloomy" Schaunard wrenched the food from them and packed everything back into the crate, amidst hateful glances. "We're not dining home on Christmas Eve, when all of Quartier Latin is buzzing with life, are we? He waited for effect, and when he saw the gleaming in the others' eyes, he knew he won them over." Have some religion! We drink in, but we'll dine out!"

They laughed and poured themselves wine. Generously. They clinked their glasses together, and downed the wine, smiling and laughing, as they should have been. They started gathering their coats, scarves, hats, when they heard a forceful knock at the door.

"Who is it?" Marcello asked, lifting his glass to his mouth with one hand, and donning his hat on with the other.

"Benoît" a deep, muffled voice said from behind the door.

Marcello almost dropped his glass - he was fairly certain that he would have, had it not been refilled with wine. The landlord?

**Author's Note:**

> i'm convinced that poor Puccini is rolling inside his grave as we speak.


End file.
